Amnesty lawyer urges President to stop Saraki's immunity clause

A legal practitioner at Amnesty International, London, Dr Kolawole Olaniyan, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari, to go against the plan by the National Assembly to create immunity clause in the constitution to protect the leadership of the legislative arm from being prosecuted while in office.

According to a statement, the lawyer queried the lawmakers for making such move, saying they did not promise the electorate this when they were seeking office.

“The immunity initiative looks like a revenge job, and one for self-aggrandisement. This is undoubtedly a low period in public esteem for our ‘lawmakers',” Olaniyan, who authored ‘Corruption and Human Rights Law in Africa’, said.

He stressed that the success of Buhari's war against corruption is dependent not only his integrity record or his cabinet members, but also a collective involvement of all arms of government, particularly the National Assembly and the judiciary.

"The members of the 8th National Assembly should worry less about their own interest and more about the citizens who are the real victims of corruption,” Olaniyan said.

He tasked the President to “move swiftly to dissuade members of the 8th National Assembly from taking forward the immunity initiative if his vision ‘to be remembered as a Nigerian president who fought corruption to a standstill’ is to be effectively realised.”

He added that Buhari must know that the immunity initiative will seriously undermine his anti-corruption agenda.